The overall arc of Vetri Maaran’s Asuran is from Poomani’s novel Vekkai (Heat). Somewhere in Tirunelveli (going by the dialect), a teenage boy from an impoverished farming family — Chidambaram (Ken Karunas) — ends up killing a local big shot, Narasimhan, aka Vadakkooran (Aadukalam Naren). Pause at the name for a moment. The man is pure evil. How strange that this demon, this asuran, bears the name of a god. Chidambaram’s father, Sivasamy (Dhanush), fears retribution, and he flees with the boy to a nearby forest. They remain in hiding, evading the trackers sent by Narasimhan’s family who want them alive, so they can do to Chidambaram what the boy did to Narasimhan. The film opens with a tranquil shot of the moon, but as with the novel’s title, it’s all about heat — the heat inside people that makes the blood boil for violence. This includes Chidambaram, too — for the murder he committed was an act of revenge for the gruesome killing of his older brother, Murugan (Teejay Arunasalam). It’s no accident that the film’s title and the opening credits appear in red. This soil is steeped in spilt blood.

An intense film till a point where it is decided to leave violence behind. Every character was forceful and some of them to a menacing level like the boar hunter. People come and go in a whisker without knowing who they are in full, maybe this is something which the director hasn’t done before.

The only drawback is how a film with some disturbing visuals get an U/A certificate(maybe for a national award) but this wouldn’t stop the cash registers from ringing. I was happy that there was no emphasis on building the past bit by bit like in Vada Chennai but yet conveyed the conditions as exactly as possible. Add to it placing politics, caste, education and other stuff on the periphery, it was purely a family feud going haywire.

Asuran can be easily placed in the top slot of your best films of 2019.

In your interview with Vetrimaaran, you had asked about how he had translated the aesthetics of the novel to fit a movie, to which he replied that the aesthetics were totally different in both cases. Have you read the novel? Did you find instances which where the aesthetic was particularly suited to cinema?

The interval portion is not the transformation. The beginning portion is the transformation.

Dhanush isn’t as clean when he’s beating up people when he’s older than when he did the same when he was younger. In younger version he is ruthless brute and he’s a force to reckon with and people fear him. He doesn’t get beat in return too often.

But the Dhanush of 50s fights but he gets beat too. Also Dhanush of young is like, “let’s see what happens” while Dhanush of old is “my son is gone, I can’t endanger my whole family now”.

That is the transformation.

The violent self is always there so it comes to me as no surprise that he fights it out. And when does he do that? His son is clearly in a potentially fatal situation and he has no other way to beat them up.

Adrenaline makes us do things. A man who doesn’t run fast when the dog chases him, he runs faster for a short amount of time if his response is fleeing. So someone like Sivasami gathering that fighting will and being able to do is not something to be surprised of.

You might have read more into the fatigue. When I saw it, I did not see it as the physical fatigue. It’s the mental fatigue of the humiliation he faced.

That’s why Vettri focus on close up of Dhanush’s face. It is the look of resigning to the fate. I didn’t think of that as physical fatigue at all.

In your interview, you had asked Vetrimaaran about that scene where Dhanush kills Kishore and his response was fantastic – what transformed as a sensational scene was a mere logical follow through. Where there any such scenes here… one that stood out?

If Vadachennai bathed you in blood, this film deep-fries you in it. This is definitely a good movie, but it left me with many questions I wanted to ask the director.

Being the terrific filmmaker he is, does Vetrimaran have to be this graphic and detailed when depicting onscreen violence everytime? For once, at least for the sake of creative variety, couldn’t he try something different which makes the audience feel the violence rather than show it in this much graphic detail?

That rousing theme music and slo-mo visuals playing every time Dhanush tries to save his son certainly didn’t belong to this movie, for me. Why does Vetri resort to such an easy commercial choice. It was not only incongruent with the theme he had taken, but ultimately diluted the film’s impact itself for me.

And lastly, I really wish Dhanush and Vetri foray into different film genres.

doctorhari: Yes, I agree regarding the graphical violence but I think that’s to egg us on when the revenge is finally taken.

We should punch the air and do “yeah, you get that bastard” kinda feeling but due to very little time we get with Teejay, his death doesn’t tug at the heart of it was a normal death due to the minimal screenspace and hence the usage of extreme graphics violence which basically breaks the human moral fabric to the level that we cannot go back.

Those visuals are somehow in place I guess to make the revenge feel more visceral, I think.

But I would like to know if he can make us feel that way by giving the character the arc.

Vertrimaaran is the only director whose movies and characters stays with you for a long time. Where Ranjith Falters in execution, Vetrimaaran seems to consistently deliver what Ranjith cannot.

A powerful social message. Although not exactly,the flashback seems to based on “kilvenmani”. The reason i say this is in the interview he mentioned the reason behind naming his production company as grassroots and it reflects in each movie. For me,the movie sounds more like a tamil version of “Django unchained” on a subtle level without going into deeper themes. The selling point of this movie is that the audience rouse when Dhanush start the rampage every time against his nemesis and is not just for masala but more on moral grounds.

Whats missing and left me mixed feeling is the narration part. Vetrimaaran is a master story teller. In Vadachennai, The flash back part is 30 minutes and the scene where Senthil, Guna and co murders Rajan alone is 10 minutes. But out of 10 minutes, 8 Minutes is completely focussed on the why’s, the setting and get to see whats going on inside these characters.

But in Asuran, the narration felt kind of rushed. I feel the landords characters are not deeply established. We never get to know these people more and whats going on inside them. In Visaranai too,The scene where the group of officers decide to encounter, that scene perfectly captures the motives of the character and make us understand about them. Wish Asuran had those scenes

Other than that, this is world-class film making. I would say this, periyerum perumal, attakathi etc as Ilakiya cinema that get to know more about our own people who live amongst us but whom we forgot.

The first half of Asuran is bloody good, marrying the intensity and visceral edge of a Bala movie with a more commercial edge (and not in the schizophrenic rudderless manner Bala himself did in Avan Ivan). The second half loses that sharpness and drives into bog standard 80’s rural potboiler area. Even the caste angle appears to be played in a superficial hero-glorifying manner (especially jarring is the token social message about education being the sole upliftment of the exploited masses). These are disappointing shortcomings especially since the film has some genuine strengths, mainly in the unvarnished setting (no item numbers, no out-of-place gloss) and a genuine regard for the great Indian masala drama. Also, Dhanush gives the role his all – with his body language and mannerisms he is able to convey a much older character and in a more subtle and nuanced manner than Vikram would have done.

ravenous: Chidambaram is a kid who absolutely despises the idea of going to school even before all this bloodshed which is conveyed subtly early in the film.

Pachaiyamma asks Dhanush to advise his son to go to school regularly before going away to jail.

So it is just that, a parent advising his kid to take education more seriously as do all Indian parents would have done at one point or another in their parenting career, so no, it is not a token message.

@honest Raj I am not sure what is meant by remotely connected. The massacre happened during 1960s and the flashback is also set in 1960’s. I am not going to details. You can read the how the massacre was done and can see some of the obvious connection. There was a dialogue in the movie where its mentioned the henchman throwed back people inside even after they escaped. This is also true with original massacre. Of course they cannot completely based on true event so they took some key references.

The shot behind the dogs’ feet as they scrape the sand onto the screen and by extension the audience? That’s the kind of exhilaration I go to the movies for 😀

And it worked because the “emotional” logic at play is rock solid – we see Sivasami’s real strengths hinted at in several preceding scenes – the hunting of the pig, the way he’s able to guess who’s walking simply by the way they drag their feet and ofc that really intelligent bit where he throws a branch into an electricity line, in blind hope that Chidambaram can leave the area unscathed.

The following oner (single take) as he explains his mental state and his son’s actions to his family and gets them to pack up and leave in that cramped house-space is a doozy. Everyone’s applies themselves at once and it’s the kind of work that Velraj executes best, corner to corner, solid composition after composition, without skipping a beat in movement.

(There’s also a simpler oner in the flashback with Pachaiyamma and a set of lanterns, where we see her calm rationale behind living with a man like Sivasami. It’s beautiful! And we’ve been primed for this too. She similarly calms down to sit down ALONE to logically let go of Murugan and accept his death. I loved Manju Warrier in this. Such heft.)

Chidambaram’s life too is now at stake and we’ve seen the ruthlessness of the forest-dwellers in the absolutely cruel booby-trap and violent outburst in the murder of Murugan.

So altogether, when Sivasami kicks 16 kinds of ass in that open land in the scorching son, we feel completely vindicated and in sync with his rage and the extent to which he is willing to physically push himself to protect what’s left. And for my money, the staging and choreography is completely fluid and in tune with Dhanush’s physique.

I can detail out how many times he gets stabbed himself when they encircle him exactly the way they encircled his son and stab from multiple sides, how he fights differently from his former self and goes for the legs of the men ahead of him and how the son ALWAYS remains a vantage point for all of them. It’s brilliant. I cracked up at the thug frantically saying “Forget the kid, kill this guy first!” and scrambling to the kid. It’s strong sauce.

But towards the end, I couldn’t help but feel even our most thoughtful filmmakers make the same mistake twice. Both in Vada Chennai and here, the climax was primed and ready for a slum (there) and Pasupathy & group (in this film) taking on the larger enemy. Both films have the Dhanush character gathering support for a deadly uprising, only to have a typically clichéd and uninspired one-on-one or one-versus-many “fight” to save the day.

It’s quite sad coz the stakes were right there!! Chidambaram’s already seen and acknowledged that his dad has a lot more to him through that rushed flashback. So ANOTHER trap and super-heroic dad-rescue was just repetitive drivel. And they did nothing particularly inventive with it.

And going by Vetri Maaran’s own interview, it makes no thematic or “logical” sense for Sivasami to arrive there earlier on his own, and most sinfully, it completely wastes Pasupathy’s role in the scheme of things when he simply lands up at the end. By then, they’re almost spoofing their own material.

I thought Virumandi did a lot of this much better. By making the fight between two villages and not just two families and expanding on the final message – one of non-violence through a violent films with themes of natural justice vs law and the need to abolish capital murder.

Of course, the films are structurally completely different – this one ends with Sivasami willingly surrendering for a crime he didn’t do, whereas that of course starts in prison.

BUT. The way Kamal Haasan used an ordinary chappal as a trigger to a much larger bloodbath was done far most sensationally and organically than the whole moraponnu angle here.

P.P.S :

We have to give it to Vetri Maaran too though. He shows rather insightfully that our caste biases run so deep that just a promise of a stranger being a “doorathu sonthakkaran” is enough for a boss to lord it over somebody like Sivasami who’s been there forever and worked hard to earn his place. That aspect stings!

It’s enough for a bumbling loafer to change his clothes, his outlook, throw his weight around and even hire a “lower-caste” old man to do the shoe-cleaning instead of him! The way that soft-spoken stranger suddenly became the accountant controlling Sivasami’s access left me stunned for a really long time. Only caste allows those shortcut miracles to happen. It instantly renders respectable men powerless and turns respectful men into fragile, honour-obsessed monsters. It’s also sadly far more thought-provoking than the rest of Asuran.

Watched ASURAN. Might have to agree that though it’s a fine film, it’s not one of the greatest VetriMaaran has delivered.

Dhanush has done well in the first portions of the movie. His body language and his tone is very flat, like a subservient guy — and that’s very much in line with what his character. He does a fine job there and one can see the transformation once he roars as an Asura or in the flash-back portions. However, I at least, having seen VADA CHENNAI too, didn’t feel Dhanush was offering anything ‘new’ as an actor. He was being as effective as he is. All other supporting actors acted well, including Pasupathy. Again, I got a kind of ‘stale’ feeling having watched movies like Hassan’s Virumaandi, & Thevar Magan and Karthik’s MADRAS. And of course, there’s no denying that there’s a HUM/BAASHA hang-over throughout the film.

The film is beautifully shot amidst the rugged forest land-scape. There are some fine lines. The first action scene where Dhanush’s son Sivasamy comes to rescue his mother is tremendously shot and so is the terrifically shot action sequence on the sands where Dhanush comes to rescue his son. It’s shot in slow motion but is brilliantly choreographed. The best action scenes in the film, belying the title of this movie, aren’t the ones where folks take revenge, but those where one’s fighting to protect one’s kith and kin.

Definitely a one-time watch.

I write, as a person not understanding a word of Tamil and totally dependent on sub-titles.

Roxx Das
Vetrimaran seems to have an obsession with Superman Dhanush. Vada Chennai, an otherwise great movie, was spoiled by the last minute transition of Dhanush into a super intelligent and agile killing machine.

Similarly, here also, the entire movie seems to contain lengthy sequences of simpleton ‘realistic’ Dhanush followed by Superman ‘mass’ Dhanush. The transition is so abrupt that once the Superman returns to his simpleton role, it feels comedic, which is an irony, since the old simpleton Dhanush, considered alone, without the comparison, would’ve made a great performance. The stark difference in the characteristics, as BR rightly pointed out, required a much better transition, or much better gritty fight sequences. Physicality of the lead actor is also an impediment to make people believe in this transition.

Other problem with the movie is that, it’s got stuff worth two movies, in it. Its overlong.

Both the actors who portrayed Dhanush’s sons are good, the elder one is ‘hero material’. Manju Warrier was impressive. I hope, she’ll get more meaty roles in Tamil, since she doesn’t seem to get many in Malayalam now. If she takes Tamil cinema seriously and vice versa, no other current heroine will be able hold a candle to her.

I had read the novel before watching the movie. The movie was pretty solid interms of ticking quite a few boxes before taking a cinematic dive. It is a well-made realistic masala. Reminded me of Pariyerum Perumal and perhaps if this movie was narrated from the boy’s point-of-view like in the novel, it might’ve taken the classic status like PP. For now, it is interesting to point out that the movie has grown better for me after watching than while watching.

doctorhari: That rousing theme music and slo-mo visuals playing every time Dhanush tries to save his son certainly didn’t belong to this movie

That’s why it’s near-impossible to do “commentary” while working in a “mass” mode — and this is what I was saying about the Rajini-Ranjith films as well.

Here, you are talking about the futility of violence. The interval block is actually about FAILURE. A man who wanted to bury the bloodlust in him finds that he HAS to unleash it. This goes against everything he believes in.

But the score and the slo-mo filmmaking makes the scene a GLORIOUS “hero moment”, and that is how most of the audience sees it. And now it becomes more BAASHA than VEKKAI.

I am sure this was a deliberate choice, aimed at the market. But with our great filmmakers, it somehow feels like a “compromise”.

We have so few auteurist filmmakers — so when Mani Ratnam makes a CCV, when Karthik Subbaraj makes a PETTA, when Vetri Maaran makes an ASURAN, it feels like a let-down.

None of these are BAD movies at all — but when it comes to such filmmakers, I guess we (or at least I) am greedy for more.

Vetrimaaran and “superman” Dhanush has always been vetrimaran’s template, right from pollathavan. There too, he was shown as a normal “kid” until the climax where suddenly he becomes the Badass man killing the hardened psycho rowdy.

Thanks for the input, BR. Apart from the masala-fication, I had a few more issues too with the movie.

Firstly, it made me wonder what exactly it adds to the Dalit narrative in mainstream tamil cinema, especially when a movie like Pariyerum Perumal had done it in a deeply personal and hard-hitting way just an year back. Perhaps this should be seen as a companion piece to that, which adds some historical perspective. Perhaps the people who are entrenched in such feelings need such frequent reminders.

Even then, I feel our directors should move on from portraying Dalit problems as simplistic ‘Oppressive-castes ill-treat-Dalits’ narratives. This may have been the only reality when it comes to Dailts a few decades ago. And sure enough, it persists in knots in many areas. However, in my experience, at least in Tamil Nadu, the present reality is lot more complex. (As an example, in the college I studied, reverse discrimination was indeed a major problem, in contrast to what these movies portray.)

And I want our directors to dig deeper when they portray caste issues. Caste discrimination itself, imo, is a symptom of a deeper disease – one man needing to look down on another to feel superior. Sometimes this disease expresses as caste discrimination, other times as racial/linguistic/class discrimination etc.

Who are the people who get afflicted by this disease? What are the deeper issues they need to address within themselves to cure it? Will one of our directors in their future works approach this issue in such a deeper, humanistic way? Then it would collectively move the society towards a solution to the problem, imo.

BR, doctorhari: I see the point you are trying to make about the violence in Asuran and the commentary on the futility of violence. While I agree with you that, in general, it is very hard to do commentary in mass mode, I think, contrary to your view, that Vetrimaaran may have just managed to do exactly this near-impossible feat in this film. There is a marked difference between the characterisation of the older and younger sivasamy with respect to the violence he indulges in. The young guy’s violence is of the tit-for-tat kind. On the one hand, there is no patience, and on the other, it’s always a payback-in-the-same-coin kind of bloodlust bordering on childishness. Now consider the interval block violence. Sivasamy wages this war not as a payback for some past deed, but to save his remaining son’s life. It’s a constructive violence as opposed to the destructive one by the youth. When sivasamy’s bride-to-be is insulted by the opposite camp using slippers, if he had only shown restraint, her life could have been saved. It is this thoughtlessness that the older guy wants to avoid, and he does it marvellously in the interval block. Dhanush, IMO, is spectacular(especially) in the stretch where Sivasamy has to summon all his will to refrain from killing the very person who killed his elder son, after knowing the fact from his other son. The fact that the murderer lives is testimony enough to the wisened old man’s success in his commitment. One could compare the father to Pariyerum Perumal who also refrains from violence to protect those dear to him till the very end when his own life is threatened. We see the younger sivasamy now in Chidambaram, whereas his father has moved on, pulling his family’s weight of violence behind him and away from harm. We see, in the father, concern, not only for his family but also other families, as shown in the scene where he regrets and apologises for sending his wife and daughter to his relative’s house, bringing them harm, and later takes care not to repeat the mistake in a similar situation. This goes on till the climax, where we see another outburst, again to save his son when all other non-violent efforts have gone in vain. All this makes the advice by father to son at the end very fitting and not at all out of place. Such behaviour is unthinkable with the youth. The transformation is similar to that of a street fighter into an army soldier. Both of them indulge in violence, yes, but doesn’t the latter have as much right to be proud of his deeds as the former has to be ashamed of? And that is exactly the pride and joy we see on Sivasamy’s face as he takes one last look at his son, alive and hopeful, on his way to jail.

Varsha: Again, the point is not whether it is POSSIBLE whether — in the context of the film — it is PLAUSIBLE. For me, the interval block seemed odd not because Sivasamy fought but because of the WAY the fight was picturised. It was definitely in the hero-glorification mode — something that I find easy to accept in a BAASHA because the man WAS a gangster, after all. (Plus, that is an all-out masala movie.)

Here, I would have found it easier — say — if there were fewer men, less use of slo-mo, more “struggle” in the fight… In other words, had it been less mass-y.

The other thing that may have helped is — as I said in the review — these characters don’t especially transcend certain generic templates, and the transition from the younger Sivasamy to the older one was something I’d have liked to have been etched out more (that flashback seemed generic/hurried).

All of which would NOT have been a problem had it been a mass-ier movie, but given the kind of space ASURAN wants to straddle, these are issues, I guess.

But I am very happy the film is a big hit. 🙂

doctorhari: I don’t see this film as something that especially adds to the Dalit narrative in Tamil cinema. (And does every film that deals with Dalit characters have to be a PARIYERUM PERUMAL?) They took a story about violence/heat and made it in a commercial space. We cannot expect anything more “complex” in this space. I feel it is a deliberately “simple” film, that touches on the fact that these characters are Dalit without wanting to dig TOO deep.

The risk, of course, is that the conflict could have played out between ANY section of the powerful and the powerless (unlike PP, which cannot be seen as anything BUT a Dalit narrative). But this is an artistic choice and I don’t see an issue with that.

Because we KNOW what Vetri Maaran is capable of when he wants to do something completely uncompromising, which is how we get a VISAARANAI. This is not in that zone at all.

BR: I agree with you on the flashback being hurried and, like you, I would also have liked an in-depth treatment, especially the transition. But, within these flaws, there was one aspect of the transformation that was so clear to me that I did not find the mass scenes, especially the interval block, to be so jarring. Initially, when I was watching through the scenes leading to the interval, I had an almost similar feeling to the one you mentioned in your review: “Would this weakened, middle-aged man really be able to single-handedly fight away so many virile thugs?”. But, by the time the flashback was over, I began seeing this film as a quasi-fantasy movie, the fantasy being the way Sivasamy’s character is shown. What convinced me was the consistency in the character with respect to the massiness. More often than not, both before and after the flashback, the violence stretches involving Sivasamy are one versus many, and he always turns up the winner. The question at the interval was answered for me thus: If, when you unleash violence left, right and center at some point in your life and it causes so much damage, and later, you try to bottle it all up, then, if at all it comes out, and that too for a just reason, it will, with such a vengeance that you become more virulent than a bunch of thugs around you. That is why we see the number of thugs growing with each passing violent stretch. That is why Sivasamy finds it so hard to control his killer instinct. So far, he has answered murder with murder and it has become such an inseparable aspect of his character that he has to take a superhuman effort to control himself and do the right thing. That, for me, was more massy than all of the violence put together! It also sends all the right signals to his son who is watching all this. Even if he does not understand it then, he is bound to, later. So, I found it only natural that a director would try to milk such scenes for maximum effect, with all the slow-motion and background score.

My point is that I could find a strong connection between the younger and older Sivasamy’s violence which, though unrealistic, was consistent enough for me to accept as a fantasy element in an otherwise realistic movie. The plausibility of the older Sivasamy’s character is connected to that of the younger version. Either you accept or reject both is how I see it. I was able to accept both and was able to make peace with the massy elements. And, personally, I would like not to go too much into Baasha references since that movie never came to mind when I was watching this film or even after, before reading the comments, but since you mention it, yes, the massiness fits easier in that movie, but that is one the most interesting aspects in Asuran, no? To gel together massiness with realism and to make(or at least try to) a valid case for the combination? Also, Baasha is a gangster, but then the young Sivasamy is also no saint. He works in an illegal liquor business, after all, which is also gangster territory. But, as I said, Asuran is on a different dimension altogether, so the baasha reference, even with respect to the “mass” scenes, makes it awkward! As doctorhari said, Asuran can be considered a companion piece to Pariyerum Perumal, both sitting on pedestals of their own, speaking of similar issues in their own unique way!

I agree with @Varsha in that I don’t see a big problem with the pre-interval block. Of course it plays to the gallery, but if you also think of the story as being narrated from the son’s perspective, it does make sense that the the son’s retelling would add more glory to the moment he realizes his dad is not a weakling. In fact, Vetrimaran did mention in his interview with BR about a line he didn’t retain, where the son talks about his father’s sacrifices. I imagine that ending would have been similar to Life is Beautiful, with a son reminiscing on his father. But reading @Kaviya’s comment, I do agree that the climax fight was a let-downer. Again, I can excuse this as the son’s unreliable retelling of what happened.

For me, the movie was quite gripping till the interval fight. Now, I do enjoy mass scenes, even in closer-to-reality movies. But I am not at all happy with the staging of these fights in this movie. As BR said “Here, I would have found it easier — say — if there were fewer men, less use of slo-mo, more “struggle” in the fight…”. I still remember the fights in Polladhavan which I feel were staged much better. Especially jarring was the climax shot in which Dhanush was seen WALKING in slo-mo when he comes to rescue his son.

IMO, Manju Warrier was the best performer and I wish I could have seen more of her. Dhanush does quite well but he still looks really young and hence his appearance as the older guy is a bit unconvincing.

I think it would have been better if Vetri had used a linear narrative in this movie. After all, we do know since Baasha that when a mass hero like Dhanush appears as a meek character, he would have a violent past. Even the trailers showed it, so it became difficult to suspend one’s disbelief during those initial scenes. Again, it was jarring to hear a narrator say ‘Chidambaram now began to see his father in a new light’. This shows that even the director felt that the change in perspective of the boy was not being effectively captured on-screen.

As BR said “None of the characters feel fully formed, because the timelines feel rushed.”

They could have spent some more time showing how the Panchami lands were being misappropriated so that we could see the narrative continuity in the land related problems of dalits (For those interested:

Instead, they had to be content with passing references since they had already overstuffed the narrative. When Dhanush’s family was killed, I expected the audience to choke, but most were just gawking at the screen which shows that the emotional connect was not very solid. Yet again, it was so jarring to see the ‘servant’ character hanging out in front of the master’s house after killing Dhanush’s entire family and then running helter-skelter on seeing him. This is why I am more fond of a storyteller than an ‘auteur’. (Btw, I just heard the dictionary pronunciation of this word and it sounded like a white guy learning to say a tamil swear word)

Also, the flashback villain’s character was not developed well. It just seems to reinforce a prejudice that dalits must be suspicious of any non dalit being nice towards them since they just pretend to be nice only in order to use them. Compare this with Ashish Vidhyarthi’s character in Aaru who begins by saying ‘He is only calling me as Anna; I am not calling him as Thambi’ and you can see the difference between characterisation and using a generic character template that only reinforces stereotypes. Overall, it was ‘worthwhile’ but not very memorable.

Interesting to see BR use the ‘asuran’ reference for the villain. For one, tamil mass hero movies are never titled based on the villain, duh. Also, the background score was a thumping “Vaa Asura” when DHANUSH was fighting.

Traditional hindu leaders (Sanatanis) use asura as a reference to bad guys. But, the name was historically used to refer someone who is very powerful. Even Indra was called Asura in some mythologies. There were ‘bad’ devas like chandran and good asuras like bali. The only difference was that while the devas were willing to surrender to the concept of an almighty, the asuras only believed in ‘might is right’. Again, Hinduism is more an agglomeration of beliefs and one can find multiple contradictions. But, the dravidian movement idealogists see Asuras as good people ONLY because the Sanatanis say Asuras are bad, while they themselves are bad, so – * – = + right. While I find this logic flawed, Vetri seems to like it and hence the hero is titled as Asuran. It becomes a bit ironical when this title is used for a movie based on land grabbing because in all traditional hindu literature, it is always the asuras who imperialistically attack the devas and never the other way round.

The villain doesn’t have the name of a god. I mean he wouldn’t have been called Ramasamy or even Swaminathan. IMO, the director cleverly kept this name so that he can maintain ambiguity about the villain’s identity. This move has really paid off and there have been no major protests from the 2 DCs because of this ambiguity.

It is quite interesting to see who finds what remarkable in this movie. Among the various opinion makers, the brahmins found it remarkable that for a change, a brahmin was portrayed in a positive light in a caste issue based movie. The dravidian rationalists found it remarkable that when Sivasami is made to fall in the feet of every family in the village, the only person who stops him and offers water is the one wearing the black shirt. The intermediate/dominant caste reviewers found the dialogue “We live in the same land and speak the same language. Isn’t that enough to live unitedly’ to be very remarkable. The dalit activists saw the movie as yet another reminder to retrieve their panchami land and achieve economic justice. I find it interesting that each of the above groups seem to remain oblivious to the scenes which the other groups had found to be very remarkable.

@Isai: Ashish Vidhyarthi and Sayaji Shinde are the most wasted actors in Tamil cinema. We were lucky enough to have them act here for a while and I cannot think of more than a handful of good roles each.

Mr. Poomani said the novel did not deal with the idea of Dalitism.
“It is sheer casteism and we should not give room to it. The reviewers and interpreters would probably have kept in mind the problems faced by Dalits in the Thanjavur district while reviewing the novel and the film. We do not have Panchami lands in our area and did not witness denial of wearing chappals,” he said.

I haven’t watched the movie or read the novel yet. So can’t say why it is being seen as Dalit’s success over oppression or the movie’s comparison to Pariyerum Perumal.

Having listened to Poomani and read his other work Agnaadi, I don’t think he subscribes to the political idea of ‘Dalitism’. His work might have caste references, merely because the story of this land has caste as a way of life. But that doesn’t necessarily make his stories as works of caste – Dalit or not.

Had it been glorification of violence in the context of “my hero” taking revenge against “my hero’s villain”, it would have all been okay in a cinematic moment (like it was in vada chennai and has been many other movies) . But when the movie discusses an issue, especially a caste one, the audience relate to it. And especially in this one, the movie was teasing the audience to think as “them vs others” (which is completely fine as long as the violence is not glorified).

Glorifying violence in such cases is the worst thing that could happen with movie coming from a responsible film maker like vetrimaaran. Every time there was a slo mo shot, the row of school students in front of me went up cheering and I have little doubt they had their caste and the oppression thereof in mind (and I can only hope I’m wrong here) while cheering and rooting for the violence.

Pariyerum perumal did make you see the whole movie from the heroes point and not for a moment did it on the crassness of revenge. Everything seemed justified and it established a delicate balance.

How the heck did this movie pass for u/a.
And what’s new with the story? Haven’t we seen bits and pieces of it all in other movies – kaala, subramaniapuram, virumaandi, devar magan – All of which did have mass moments but none in the angle of “us vs them” in terms of inviting the audience to participate in the violence or root for it. can a similar movie come out with a religious tone instead of a caste angle – say about ayodhya – which is also about a “land” dispute? Replace vadakkooran and thekkooran with names of religion and this movie wouldn’t have seen the light of the day. Why the leniency when it comes to violence in the name of caste?

Why is it that people fail to comprehend that violence wasn’t in the name of the caste?

Goddamnit, it was even spelt out in the movie. The killings are not due to the reason that one belonged to a certain caste.

Sure there was oppression and I’ll treatment but all the killings took place due to the more primal emotions.

Vadakooran would have killed Teejay even if he belonged to his own caste, because Teejay humiliated him and that’s the reason Vadakooran killed him.

As another commenter asked why the two villages didn’t go for each others head and go full Tarantino, there’s no logic.

It is familial dispute, tit for tat, revenge. That’s it. The massacre happens because they fear that they would lose their lands due to the protests and all. Aren’t there killings that happen in the real world due to property dispute?

There’s a caste undertone but that isn’t the causal factor. Whenever Dhanush fights it is personal and for his family and hence the familial dispute. He is not fighting for something large.

In Vadachennai though, he did fight for a larger cause, he forms a gang in the climax, and that doesn’t happen in Asuran ffs.

And the cheering is due to the extremely thumping BGM, Dhanush’s presence and the rooting for his vengeance aka the hero’s revenge.

It would have been nice if the following questions were also asked to her: What are her views on pay parity?

Why are there very few female writers and directors in tamil cinema?

As a woman, would it be a priority to do movies written/directed/starred by women?

She appears to be very confident about the movie and even team FC says Bigil’s trailer is the best trailer of this year.

But the trailer, with its women’s issue, Vijay’s hairstyle and CGI reminds me of….Bhairavaa.

I also don’t understand why Atlee felt the need to repeat elements like multiple vijays, kids song etc. in every movie. I don’t know whether he thinks they are his success-formula/lucky charm. But, the kids portion in the Verithanam song felt a bit out of place for me.

It becomes a bit ironical when this title is used for a movie based on land grabbing because in all traditional hindu literature, it is always the asuras who imperialistically attack the devas and never the other way round.

Given Vetrimaaran’s inclination for the “- * – = +” logic, why would he subscribe to the Hindu right’s definition of Asuras?

“Given Vetrimaaran’s inclination for the “- * – = +” logic, why would he subscribe to the Hindu right’s definition of Asuras?”
He needn’t. I will use a ramayana analogy to explain why I found it ironical. We have literature like Raavana Kaaviyam or even Mani Ratnam’s Raavan(an) which provides a valid counter-narrative to the dominant hindu narrative about Ram being the good guy and Raavanan being the evil one. But, if you make a movie where a man kidnaps another man’s wife and you name the kidnapper as Ram and the woman’s husband as Raavanan, I feel you are not providing a valid counter-narrative but are simply muddying the waters. This is how I felt about the Asuran reference.

But, if you make a movie where a man kidnaps another man’s wife and you name the kidnapper as Ram and the woman’s husband as Raavanan, I feel you are not providing a valid counter-narrative but are simply muddying the waters.

This is “valid” only if you believe that Rama/Ravana (or Devas/Asuras for that matter) were real people and not constructed characters in a work of fiction.

That said, I too find the title of the film to be ironic – that the protagonist apparently belongs to the caste whose members claim that they’re descendants of Indra.

“This is “valid” only if you believe that Rama/Ravana (or Devas/Asuras for that matter) were real people and not constructed characters in a work of fiction.”

Actually, I think it becomes even more valid when one agrees that this is a work of fiction written by a single author.

If I write a novel with a protagonist named Tom Riddle who is opposed by an evil guy called Dumbledore and his student Harry Potter, I would be chastised for lacking imagination and credibility. I also don’t think it would be legally permissible. I have the same view for this inversion of Ramayana/Asuras.

@Amit Joki: It’s Sivasamy. 🙂 The names of his family members are quite interesting: Murugan, Pachaiyammal, Mariyammal, Velmurugan, Chidambaram and Murugesan. The villain and his brother are named Narasimman and Venkatesan. ‘Vadakooran’ could also be interpreted as ‘someone who hails from the North’.

“When Dhanush, as a father, before his trial in the court, says ‘They will take away our land,’ and as he concludes the dialogue with insisting on education, the movie uncritically acknowledges caste-bases land acquisition as a way of life within a society that is caste-biased, and Dalits should live by it. However, education isn’t as easy as it is used in the dialogue.”

While I agree that the line about education seemed to be somewhat shoehorned (much like the Anjali Patil scene in Kaala) into the script, the author’s argument about patriarchy is a bit unconvincing. I think it’s nearly impossible to make a film, that too in the mainstream space, which balances out both. IMO, the only film which comes close to achieving it is Papilio Buddha.

@An Jo: A good versatile actor will have the ability to portray any kind of role to perfection and make the audience properly understand the character, convince them of the role and entertain them too. Dhanush does these things well in every film and in Asuran too. When you say he offers nothing new as an actor, I guess you must be the kind of audience that loves ‘huffing/puffing’ hyper-expressive actors who ‘try’ to act or you must only be satisfied with make-up loving actors who think that make-up/costumes is what is primarily important for acting. So when you watched Dhanush playing a much older man than his actual age without any make-up or any huffing/puffing hyper-expressiveness, you obviously weren’t satisfied.

A movie whose very essence and core is caste has been shorn and cleansed of all its caste references and the discussion that instead happens is “Haves and Have-nots” “Upper class and the lower classes”.

How many more movies like Madras, PariyerumPerumal, Asuran are needed to awaken and rouse the tamil audience (and critics) to actually use the word CASTE when debating these movies.

Brangan: I wasn’t talking about the discussion; I was talking about your review. Many people in the discussion have rightly identified and elaborated on the Dalit aspect, whereas your review has completely missed that narrative. Exactly what happened with ‘Madras’ too.

Lol. Smug or not, I wouldn’t claim to be anything more than an armchair activist. I wouldn’t presume to have the skills to flay anything with a stunning rebuttal. I am just voicing my frustration at how and why the obvious theme of the movie is not being acknowledged or talked about.

Just the fact that Sivasami’s family and villagers rally for reclaiming Panchami land for themselves establishes the fact that they are Dalits as Panchami lands were assigned to Scheduled Castes and cannot be owned by anyone else.

Other ignominies that are heaped on them such as not being allowed to wear footwear, to carry it on their heads, parallels to கீழ்வெண்மணி where escapees are captured and tossed back into the fire, the fact that the mill owner considers a newbie Pandi ‘one of his own’ and would rather defend him than defend Sivasami who’s a much more valuable employee despite the former clearly being in the wrong, the hired assassin whose own Dalit identitiy is spat upon by the higher castes when he fails to kill Sivasami…. the film is replete with instances which establish that the oppressed are being oppressed because they are DALITS and not because they are merely poor/ have-nots/ lower classes. Pandi is poor too, he’s a have-not too, he’s from the lower classes too; yet the mill-owner wastes no time in defending him over Sivasami.

… The older Sivasamy may be able to buy his son a pair of chappals without a thought, unlike his younger version, in whose times footwear was forbidden for members of his caste and class. But the upper classes have upped their game, too. Their fences are now electrified. The divide has become deadlier…

(Now I wish I had used the term “dominant castes” instead of “upper classes — but when you are dashing off a review in a few hours, you leanr to live with these mistakes.)

I am just voicing my frustration at how and why the obvious theme of the movie is not being acknowledged

But maybe for me caste is NOT the “obvious theme” of the movie. Did you consider that?

For me the following (from my review) is the “obvious theme”…

it’s all about heat — the heat inside people that makes the blood boil for violence… Despite his best efforts, the bloodlust he’s carefully buried inside him has already been passed on to the next generation. It’s not nurture. It’s nature.

… And note how Murugan defends (of all people) Narasimhan, who has had him beaten up by the police. “I beat up his son. What kind of father is he if he doesn’t return the favour?”

I don’t doubt that you see ASURAN as a movie ABOUT caste. But I see it as being one about violence (but incited by generations of caste divide)…

Surely I am allowed to voice this in my review. Surely there is not just “one way to read a movie”!

As I said in my comment above, PARIYERUM PERUMAL cannot be seen as anything but a movie about caste. ASURAN — IMO — does not fall into this category.

I am not asking you to agree with me. I’m just saying maybe we should not expect everyone to think and respond the way we do, especially about art — and especially with such “generic” narratives that seesaw between genre thrills and themes.

Brangan: I do see your point about the ‘main theme’ of a movie being perceived differently by each person. And I do agree with that point somewhat but I would think that would apply much more in a movie where the main theme, so to speak, was more ambiguous. Asuran, IMO seems to be more about caste-based oppression, than anything else. Even the violence in Asuran is caste-related; it’s either the oppressive violence by the dominant castes or the reactionary violence of the oppressed.

I don’t see the violence in Asuran as blood lust, especially not by Sivasami and Co. I don’t see it as nature either. I see it as self-defence, their only means of survival in a system where police and courts are part of the oppressive machinery. They don’t often have the luxury of CHOOSING violence, as ‘blood-lust’ would imply. As the official slogan of a mainstream Dalit-based political party urges “அடங்க மறு, அத்து மீறு! திமிறி எழு, திருப்பி அடி!”

You’re spot-on about there being more than one way to see a movie. Trust me, this isn’t the first time I’m seeing a movie differently from yourself. My only gripe in this case is that this re-classifying caste oppression as between classes or between haves and have-nots is to distort/ deny history (not to mention the present as well), denies the movie its chance at shining the spotlight on such issues and is unfair to the innumerous victims of this inhuman oppression.

Of course, you are still free to disagree with my views and draw your inferences about the movie. I guess I’m just trying to explain the reasons behind my angst and indignation 🙂

Sirpi Podaran: “bloodlust” is not always about CHOOSING to be violent. It’s what’s bubbling inside you — it’s nature.

For me, the line that clinched my reading of the film was when Murugan himself defended the man who had him beaten up. He says: “I beat up his son. What kind of father is he if he doesn’t return the favour?”

So it’s not just that he uses violence because there is no other option. It is also seen as a way of life, as a sort of “dharmam”. And this “nature”, this “way of life” has passed on to the younger son, too — which is why he is so contemptuous of his non-macho father.

I think we need to separate the films that use oppression as part of a genre template — i.e. say, in CHINNA THAMBI (you humiliated my widowed mother, so I will rise against you), as the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Versus the films that use oppression to genuinely talk about the issue (like in PARIYERUM PERUMAL).

That is how I see it. I am not saying ASURAN has nothing to do with caste. But by burying all the specifics in the flashback with the inciting incident, these issues become a variation of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” — as opposed to genuinely being a FANDRY or a PP.

Yes. You could of course argue that one cannot do more than this in the mainstream. To that, I will just say let’s wait and watch.

I am sure someone will crack it soon 🙂

Thank you for engaging in this discussion with a genuine sense of curioisity (as opposed to the twitter smugness). Cheers.

I think the source material (from whatever I’ve read) is more about violence but here, the core is caste/class struggle of dalits. The film, IMO is also about dalit proletarian assertion and resistance, i.e. what happens when working class dalits assert themselves (violently or non violentely) or resist. Even when dalits assert themselves non violently (Mariyammal’s chappal scene, or where Sivasami’s brother tries to raise caste/class consciousness amongst his peers, about how land is their right etc.) they are subjected to abject humiliation and/or violence. Sivasamy, who’s pretty much lumpen and is totally oblivious to how he’s too part of this oppressive structure gets this massive blow when the caste pride of his upper caste boss gets hurt. Or the slap by Murugan being so humiliating to Vadakkooran, that he just lost it despite him asking everyone else to dial it down as they need ‘their support’ to win the elections. It’s the core of the film, IMO.

Regarding Sivasami’s son – I think they’re part of the system, and hence IMO don’t think beyond the structures which talks about ‘gouravam’ etc. Sivasami has witnessed clearly how the system functions, and even his brother, who’s a communist leader organizing farmers and dalit labourers with land is much more clearer re: how to be strategic (while just saying ‘violence is not the only way’). And see how a privileged brahmin like Prakash Raj, despite being on the right side, doesn’t face this violence which has been unleashed on Sivasami’s folks. He’s, at most, arrested for a brief while, but that’s about it.

Of course, the peripheral and obvious layer is indeed about violence and whatnot, but IMO it’s not mainly about that. And again, it doesn’t have to be like PP for it to be about caste. Struggle for land is one of the issues that is at the heart of dalit struggle tbh.

However, why is hardly anyone talking about the atrocious dubbing? Seriously, I was super distracted by it. Is it because of time constraints, they couldn’t get the dialect right and had to perhaps dub it in?
I guess I get why Vetrimaaran was not super satisfied about the film.

I was bored by this movie – maybe my expectations after Aadukalam, visarnai were too high. I didnt really enjoy Vada Chennai either (casting Andrea in that role kind of ruined it for me).

Here, it felt like the tired old template. I am sure there are a lot of subtle variations and inner/hidden meanings – as the discussions on this site show. But those go over my head and a poor/oppressed family raising against the MAN didnt offer much in treatment to make it stand out. I thought Dhanush was excellent as the old man. His moustache in the younger avatar was distracting, but the flashback was too drawn out and cliched. Cutting the movie down by another 20 mins could have made this better.

As a Vetrimaran-movie-climax, this was was a severe let down. Dhanush coming by himself, Pasupathi coming like the police in our movies — defies logic. The worst is the throwaway line about education being the most important thing — other than asking his son a few time whether he goes to school there is nothing else in the movie that supports this statement.

Manju warrier seemed to make the best she could, but lip-sync was off in several places and i was thinking what someone like aiswarya rajesh would have done in this role!!

“As I said in my comment above, PARIYERUM PERUMAL cannot be seen as anything but a movie about caste. ASURAN — IMO — does not fall into this category.”

I differ with this statement. Since PP mainly shows the experience of 1 individual, if one imagines Kathir as belonging to a family which has a feud with the more powerful heroine’s family (there are many such tamil movies) , almost the entire movie would still make sense. Whereas Asuran touches upon multiple problems faced by dalits and shows the POVs of multiple dalits. So, I would consider Asuran to be more of a movie about caste than PP (But IMO PP was far more EFFECTIVE than Asuran). I think this is where the movie differs from the novel which was more about the heat/violence.

Sorenkierky: Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the movie, I find them quite interesting. I can kinda see why Brangan would see caste and oppression being not much more than the proverbial final straw that then unleashes this violence that has always been kinda bubbling underneath. I can’t help seeing it differently; I see the violence as being completely a REACTION to the oppression, a reaction borne out of frustration at there being no other avenues to seek justice. If you take the oppression out of the equation, I don’t see this violence happening. That’s why I can’t think of the violence as being their ‘nature’. To me, its cause and effect. But I guess one could argue that Asuran dwelt more on the effect than on the cause.

About the atrocious lip-sync which I found terribly distracting, Vetrimaaran said in one of his interviews that he writes/ rewrites a lot of the dialogues AFTER the scene has been shot, often at the editing table.

So, are we in denial that there is no violence in the name of caste. Then its a shame that Pariyerum Perumal couldn’t shake the presets some of us have in our minds. If PP couldn’t, I don’t know what ever could.

“Since PP mainly shows the experience of 1 individual, if one imagines Kathir as belonging to a family which has a feud with the more powerful heroine’s family (there are many such tamil movies) , almost the entire movie would still make sense”

No, there are many scenes/dialogues in PP which wouldn’t make sense if the caste angle is removed.

PP’s reference to Ambedkar, heroine’s father character having no personal enmity to the boy but for his background, PP’s resentment to Yogi Babu’s character to the point of mistrusting the friendship, PP’s internal struggle where he is unable to come to terms with being oppressed just because.. especially this one which gets to the viewer’s vein as well.

Sirpi Podaran:I see the violence as being completely a REACTION to the oppression…

But to me, this is EXACTLY what tips the film into genre — for we have seen this in so many films.

Whereas a PARIYERUM or a VEDHAM PUTHITHU is uninaginable without it being about caste.

But thanks guysm This is a fascinating discussion for me, and it’s something I teach in my classes as well. We are both in agreement about who the characters are and what the narrative beats are, yet we — “logically”, i.e. with the facts in possession — define the film differently.

“Suran simply means King in Tamil. Sura Samharam where Lord Muruga destroys Suran. So here I guess Sivasamy is simply an ‘A’sura, a who relentlessly fights the malicious powerful man.”

I thought Sooran means warrior, especially a very powerful one. That’s why we use phrases like ‘Sooradhi Sooran’. Also, I guess the use of ‘A’ prefix to denote an opposite/antonym is only done for sanskrit related words, which Sooran isn’t.

This is streaming on Prime already, so I watched it cos I was curious about Manju Warrier’s role. It is interesting how her toned down acting in Malayalam is scaled up several notches to the melodramatic in this movie.

I agree with the comments made here that the movie is mainly about caste : oppression and the reaction to oppression, which in turn begets more violence. While stories from the viewpoint of the oppressed definitely need to be told, I found the treatment clichéd : the way it was told, the fight scenes, the flash back. There really was not much of a surprise anywhere in the story.

@Sirpi – Oh I think we’re on the same page here, re: the violence. I was just saying there’s a whole, rather peripheral, layer about violence – however it is, of course, primarily about oppression of dalits by feudal-upper caste folks. I highlighted this earlier too – i.e. what Dhanush’s brother talking about Violence not being the only way, also organizing resistance against violence unleashed on them.

And with you, re: violence being a reaction – this is precisely why, despite a change in landscape (i.e. Sivasami’s family), the cycle of violence still continues (owing to the same oppressive structures that forces them again into it). So yeah, can’t group this with a bunch of other films that are about violence.

After I watched your Roundtable, I was amazed by Vetri; he seems to well informed and knwoledgable and everyone praised Asuran so, I watched my first Vetri’s film, on Amazon with high expectations.

I was bored, the young son was annoying af, was the dumbest character of the decade, it was surprising how he didn’t mess up the murder (but D. helped there too). And to kill someone that brutally over a private slap? Couldn’t buy that at all, unnecessary over-the-top violence and gore. Couple of songs were good, the photography was top notch. But the story and the writing were a huge let down, I turned it off around 1.5 hr mark when the flashback started. The story was so predictable and these ‘transformations’ are something I am tired of from vedhalam, theri etc. but Dhanush still did a fantastic job as an actor.

If there is one scene that struck me and the only one I absolutely enjoyed, was the boar hunting scene: we see Dhanush and his eldest son strategically aiming for it, the younger makes a blunder (which his dad averted, foreshadowing ig), and then the boar ferociously runs to attack him and Dhanush instead of killing the boar, saves his son, while the eldest tries to kill it. And amidst all this, the boar escapes but the poor dog is dead (from electrocution!) and it falls on Dhanush’s shoulders to actually deal with the grief. It was brilliantly executed and I wished if there was violence, it be like that, rather than, showing headless bodies which was all pretty lame.

Yeah, I just wish, the film didn’t fall into cliches and tropes and it exactly did that.

ENPT, was much much better, at least I wanted to know what happened in the end and even though it, too faltered very much, at least kept me invested enough and Dhanush was brilliant there too. He selects good stories no doubt, I just wish they were better-written.